Bad Apple: …In The Life Of Chris Gaines

[Today: Garth Brooks plays make-believe...]

I’m the sort that will drive three blocks out of the way to avoid a gruesome traffic accident because I don’t want to gawk at other people’s suffering or be scarred by roadside carnage. But I’m also the sort who will go out of the way to pay $1.99 for a trainwreck of an album so that I can plumb the depths of awful and report the results on my blog. If Garth Brooks lay bleeding by the side of the road, I’d do the right thing and get help, but once he decided to take on the alter-ego Chris Gaines and pretend to be an alterna-rocker, you better believe I’m going to pay my nickels to point and laugh. On that score, …In The Life Of Chris Gaines represents a deliciously well-spent $1.99.

This 1999 release was the pre-soundtrack (whatever that means) to a movie called The Lamb that was to be about fictional rocker Chris Gaines. Ostensibly, this album was conceived as a device to prep Brooks’ considerable audience for the movie, which tellingly was never made (although he did film a VH1 Behind The Music about Gaines). Viewed cynically, this could be taken as his attempt to crossover into rock without risking his own brand name. Coming as it did on the heels of his disastrous tryout with the San Diego Padres, this album led more than a few armchair psychologists to speculate on his state of mind at the time. One thing is certain – Brooks hit a major league curveball much more credibly than he imitates a bad-boy rocker.

Amazingly, this album sent three singles into the Billboard charts, including Top 5 hit ‘Lost In You’ – Brooks’ only Top 40 pop single. [My only reaction here is to shake my head in knowing acceptance of the stuff that finds its way to the top of the charts.] Even more amazingly, despite selling more than two million copies (!), this was a drastic failure for an artist accustomed to selling comfortably into eight figures. His core audience was bewildered by his low-budget Anthony Keidis makeover, and true rock fans weren’t buying it.

This music mostly reminds me of the obligatory sucky ballads that appeared on almost every hard rock album of the late-80′s and early-90′s. Filed under unintentionally hilarious is ‘Right Now’, a truly bizarre amalgamation of The Youngbloods’ 60′s anthem ‘Get Together’ and stiff white-boy robo-rap. But I have to applaud Garth Brooks for being freaky enough to do the nuclear zag – this is clearly not Ropin’ The Wind II, and that in itself makes me like him more than when I doled out my hard-earned nickels…

Advertisement

Tags: ...In The Life Of Chris Gaines, Anthony Keidis, Behind The Music, Billboard, Chris Gaines, Garth Brooks, Ropin' The Wind, San Diego Padres, The Youngbloods, VH1